Back in the early 2000s, in an unassuming lab at the heart of the University of Iowa Health Care campus, researchers Stanley Perlman and Paul McCray embarked on the low-profile work of making a genetically-modified mouse capable of contracting SARS — a severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by a coronavirus spreading at the time.They succeeded in creating a mouse with the human “ACE-2” receptor — and in doing so paved the way for the very high-profile historic achievement of our time: Developing in under a year a vaccine for a similar coronavirus that causes COVID-19.“It turns out ACE-2 was the same receptor for SARS-CoV-2,” McCray said.